Jefferson Pickleball Committee receives $118,000 grant
Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation gave away over $2 million at its 9th Annual Grant Award Ceremony Tuesday night at the Greene Room Events Center at Wild Rose.
The main highlight of the event was the competitive grants that totaled $785,035 and went to 13 recipients. The two highest amounts went to the Jefferson Pickleball Committee for $118,000 to build two pickleball courts in Russell Park and $85,000 to the Greene County Cattlemen’s Association for a refrigerated cargo van. President Justin Robbins described what that will be used for.
“Hopefully, if we can get a decent buy on the van we’re going to try to get a traveling picnic table as well so we can continue to lend that out and make some events a little bit easier. With as many events as we’ve been able to do, over the past couple of years we see a little bit more need each time we grill, and we can buy a little more volume to help us do it. So this is going to help out immensely for all the community projects we do. Thank you very much.”
Another portion of the grant funds went toward economic impact with Greene County Development Corporation and Jefferson Matters, along with GGCGC’s legacy grants with certain pledges that were in the last years with the Community Animal Shelter and the Children’s Center, as well as the Greene County Community Foundation.
The two school districts also received funding and the seven municipalities received a total of $175,000. Finally, there were six other grant recipients that each received $53,500 for the community foundations of the six contiguous counties.
GGCGC also announced the retirement of two of its board members with Rick Morain and Lori Mannel. Morain spoke about one of his favorite parts about being a board member.
“One thing that’s been a pleasure about the whole thing for me is that nobody holds back during the discussions of who gets the awards. We each have our own opinions but we don’t necessarily represent our own areas, we represent the whole county.”
Board member applications must be submitted by Monday, April 8th to be considered for the two open positions.
GGCGC is the non-gaming license holder for Wild Rose Casino in Jefferson. The two entities have an agreement that the casino gives five percent of its adjusted gross income to the non-profit organization. Of that five percent, GGCGC gives 0.9 to the six contiguous counties.
Full list of recipients: